issue 153

lisa_116UID: 2817118

I find the speaker's assertion to be partially reasonable. The claim that students should maintain a skeptical attitude to what they are learning does make sense. However, it would seem to be specious to claim that whatever they study should be queried.

To begin with, skepticism is indispensable to gain the essence of knowledge during the students' learning process. Only by continuous doubts about what they study, students can consider a problem from more comprehensive perspectives and therefore grasp the substance of science. Consider Descartes, a famous philosopher, mathematician and physicist in France, who proposed the principle of generally suspecting, "I think, therefore, I am". In short, skepticism can be the foundation to build upon to make profoundly progress when studying, researching or exploring.

Additionally, in many cases, skepticism can be the origin of innovation. A student that just passively accept the knowledge what he or she learns, without doubting and actively thinking, can only obtain the things that are already known. To the contrary, bravely skepticism could motivate students to consider a problem from a different or even opposite point of view when they learn from the lecture given by their teachers or even works written by certain famous scholars and therefore, might lead to some amazing discoveries which are ignored or wrongly perceived before. For instance, the Polish astronomer Copernicus, who valorously doubted the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, originally advanced the theory that the earth and other planets revolve around the sun, which thoroughly changed people’s faith at that time. Moreover, Einstein queried Newton’s classic mechanics and putted forward the special and general theories of relativity, which revolutionized modern thought on the nature of space and time and formed a theoretical base for the exploitation of atomic energy. In a word, courageous doubt about what one learned is the source of innovation.

However, skepticism should not be blind but rather be kept to some certain limit. For example, a student who simply doubts everything he or she learns without any support of theoretical analysis obviously will not gain anything valuable, let alone original proposition or discovery. Only through intensive understanding and thorough analyzing of a subject, a learner can possibly get access to some novel findings. Therefore, reasonable skepticism should be doubt that build upon the foundation that a learner has known well enough about the subject he or she learns and analyzed from a logical perspective, rather than blind doubt without any theoretical support.

To sum up, reasonable skepticism rather than blind doubt about everything should be advocated during the learning and researching process which could inspire students’ active thoughts from another perspective. It is at times the skepticism that provide originations of some profound discoveries and inventions.